corporate settings

[Hazar]

I wonder whether 'corporation settings' means office's environment or not.
Does that mean intangible things or physical things?

Ultimately I want to know what does 'sterility of corporate settings' mean.

This phrase came from the following sentences.

I discovered while consulting with a unit of Pitney Bowes that a secret to their success was that when a little restaurant near their headquarters went out of business, the division rented it for $2,000 a month and put a team there. For all kinds of reasons, like distance from the corporate headquarters, like shabby surroundings, like proximity to one another, it was enormously powerful. I have been appalled by the sterility of corporate settings.

[Doran]

It generally means that corporate settings are impersonal and have no personal warmness--it's all business.

[apex2000]

This has more to do with performance. Sterility in this sense refers to the lack of some perceived action within the organisation, where large corporates have extensive office accommodation with people moving about in the same fashion day after day. There is nothing to spark off any change for the better, no ingenuity nothing that makes it interesting and little to encourage people to go to work.
Take a group out of that environment into new surroundings, where none of the 'old' atmosphere exists and they create their own environment which boosts performance and creativity.